Ask a teen if they want to learn to dance and the answer is usually, "NO WAY!" However, I've found that many students' only success in school was on dance floor. It helped improve self-esteem where, previously, there was none. The activity lends itself to creativity, joy of movement, and improvement of social skills.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

LibraryThing

I found LibraryThing very interesting, though I doubt I would utilize this site. Of interest to me, however, was that I found that there is a newer edition of a book I use a lot. Knowing that, I will make a point of purchasing a new one. Mine is so tattered from years of use.

Locating a particular edition sometimes took a little time looking through the lists. Interesting that if you didn't find it in one list, you could check another library listing. I wish they had this for the CDs I use for class. I'm always looking for new music, but hard to remember all the CDs I do have.

I think this would be interesting for language arts classes. The reading list could be posted and members could not only follow threads of discussion about a book among their classmates, but also from a world of readers. I'm sure other media could be used for this as well, but looking at the various threads of discussion, it seemed like a different slant.

In our district, reading is a a big part of the district action plan and utilizing this site, students could post books they've read and watch the list grow. Having an opportunity to interact with others and see how many other books by the same author, etc., could possibly excite them to do more reading.